Welcome Napa (CA) CopBlock
One of the folks starting Napa Cop Block, more details on how to contact them coming soon, emialed me this week with the video above. It’s not the best quality but nothing horrific (thankfully) happens. What is of interest is that the officer threatens Napa CopBlockers for filming, yet refuses to take action.
Why would the officer take the time to point out these folks were breaking the law but refuse (by leaving) to arrest them for it? Could it be that officers are sick of being on camera arresting people for recording them and the public scrutiny that comes with it? If so, great work.
Here’s what one of the Napa CopBlockers had to say about the experience:
On 3/10/12 while driving back to our house, my girl friend and I noticed an all too familiar sight here in Napa, Ca. The Napa police Department had a vehicle pulled over, as seems to be abundant. We also noticed that in order to conduct their stop they needed Two squad cars for a vehicle with one occupant. To be very clear there are a lot of “good” officers here in Napa. However it seems that too often we hear of police brutality and police misconduct cases. Therefore and since it was a quiet dark street we decided to stop and record the incident in order to ensure the safety of the citizen and hold the officers accountable for their actions.
In our small town it has become more and more apparent that the police department has, for lack of a better comparison, a “God” complex. They all to often are stopping our youth for no apparent reason at all. As well even the local news paper, the Napa Valley Register, seems to do nothing but defend the police department in all their actions. As we can see in this short video taken on this particular night the officers superiority complex kicked in when he approached us for recording. Knowing that it was well within our rights to film public servants he still chose to approach us and lie to us about our rights. Stating thats it is against the law to record officers, when it is not according to case law. As well he told us that he could take our phones for “evidence because he didn’t want to be videoed.” My question is why lie and try to intimidate the citizens that you took an oath to protect?
We were not in anyway worried about arrest however as we both are well versed in our rights to record police. our sole purpose to filming the police that night was to let them know that it is possible here in Napa for us to watch them as well. too many of our youth have fallen victim to police intimidation tactics and are arrested because the police violate laws to get a confession. We should not be nervous or scared while recording the police in our community as all we are doing is ensuring the safety of our citizens.
Stay tuned for more from Napa CopBlock.
